NFL Labor Strife

We cannot fail to recognize Paul Domo's stellar article yesterday detailing the who, what and whys of the looming NFL labor battle in the wake of the owner's 32-zip vote to terminate the CBA two years early. Who knew Domo could be this insightful? Still, one wonders why the article appeared when it did...a month after the vote occurred and a month before the start of training camp. Hardly the time of year when the fans' focus is on anything NFL.

A couple of thoughts: I've been a long-time critic of union boss Gene Upshaw but this article reveals some shrewdness to Upshaw's actions. Maybe he really is crazy like a fox.

For as good as Upshaw is portrayed, new commish Roger Goodell comes off not so good. Indeed, he's described as a hot-headed less than smooth operator still feeling his way into the job.

In my opinion, the owners would be crazy to think they would be better off without a salary cap. Just look around at all the leagues that are going or have gone to a cap system. They should ask themselves why no one is moving away from a cap and why the MLB union fights to the death to avoid a cap. My prediction is that salaries would eventually EXPLODE without a cap. Their instincts to preserve the cap and approve the current deal were the correct call. Trust your instinct.

I don't know if the current deal is unfavorable to owners or not. Me thinks that teams are still very profitable and that owners are loathe to open their books and reveal all of the moeny they take out (in the form of salaries and other financial bennies) or take in as "non-league" revenue, which doesn't count toward the salary cap. But are the owners really willing to go to war over a lousy two percentage points in the salary cap which is the difference between the old percentage of league revenue (56% I think) and the 60% now? Maybe they are.

Here's the guts of the owner's argument.

"Smaller-market teams aren't doing great because they've got lower revenues [from older stadiums] and high player costs," a league executive said. "Then you've got the bigger markets where the team overwhelmingly had to pay for the stadium. They got some public contribution, but it wasn't much. They have the higher payroll plus all that debt and stadium operating expenses. Plus, in Gene's world, a bill for revenue-sharing. So you end up with a deal that works for neither [small-market or big-market teams]."

And Upshaw's trump card in negotiations

"They are essentially renting a system from us," he said. "We agreed to give them a salary cap for a specific period of time. They agreed to pay us 60 percent of the revenues for that cap. When they decide not to do that anymore, that's fine.

"But if they ever decide they don't want a salary cap, and then wake up one day and change their mind and decide, 'You know what, maybe we need that,' guess what? The price is going to be a lot higher than it is now. And they're not going to want that."